Moving Poems

squabs squatting on treetops
stuck between bide and fly

how do you know if wings work?

the youth club was a place for the bigguns
littluns allowed
thursdays
six thirty ’till eight

we strode along the spinney path
you in your tan suede jacket
voice on the croaky cusp of change

I can’t remember what I wore
it would have been tom-boy

an old lady stopped to chat
we wondered why she was so proud to be eighty three
to us it was a tragedy

our sixpence subs sat in our pockets
subs was a bigguns word
got your subs?
yeah, got mine
got your subs?

we paid our subs and looked around
not moving our heads

to one end
the four-legged green king held court
humouring two or three littluns
wielding over-sized cues

to the other
a hatch with snacks

Norwegian Wood whined from a record player in the corner
a biggun and his bird smooched by
his hand fluttering
on and off her bum

you turned your rosacea away

wanna play on the football table?

later we bought potato puffs and vimto
ergo
trying to look casual

at eight we decided to go

on the walk home you asked if we should try a snog

we’d ridden bikes
scrumped apples
hoola-hooped and knocked up ginger through every season

I shrugged
ok

we lay down in a snapped twig of the spinney
like a dry
unwrapped sandwich
acting out curiosity

your jacket zip
dug into my chin
the kiss was wet and alien

it was a kiss

after it we stood up
as if we’d just arm-wrestled

the squab floundered frantically
on the harsh grey of the path
you scooped it up

cupping it

pushing it slowly

through a hole in the hedge

we clopped down the spinney steps
in thought

what was so great about being a biggun?
do wings work?

at the bottom we said bye
flapping our separate ways
knowing life had changed

Father said that compliance was the gatekeeper of life.
A concept not easily embraced by the mind of a boy.
Obedience from wife and child
was a man’s entitlement.
Mouth shut.
Ears open.
Obey, respect, praise, pray.
When Mother was raped,
I was mute.
When her wounds wept,
I shivered frozen rage.
Belittled, afraid, angry, ashamed.
Locked in compliance.
Silenced.

In my head they would come,
the heros and giants.
She died.
I was ten.
She was blue.
A crumpled rag doll despatched to a hole
in the yard.
He cursed into glasses of malt and I cried,
but not loud.
Months became years, slowly turning
the fears to new stirrings. A giant emerging,
heroic, maybe.
And I grew and he shrank as he drank as I grew
and I knew, in my heart, the Gatekeeper was lost.
He lay in his bed, still ranting
and spewing out desperate prayers
that sank in the void of his desolate stare.

I took Mother’s hand
and I never let go.
The pillow felt soft as we walked up the stairs.